Same. My parents are from the Bay area but my dad was military. He thought the Beatles were a fad so you can imagine he didn’t have much time for the Dead. I’ve done everything with music on my own and even gotten him into stuff from his youth that missed the first time around! My kids have access to so much good music it’s not even funny.
Welcome! Lots of stuff out there. Here is a short list. You owe it to yourself to check a little out from each year. You won't know you like it unless you try it. The good thing about dead heads is they have lists. Lots of lists. Tomorrow I could make a list with other shows, as could others. Happy listening! 1990 - 03/22, 03/29, 06/16, 07/16, 09/14-20, 12/28 1989 - 04/02, 06/19, 07/17, 10/09, 10/16, 10/26 1988 - 03/27, 06/28, 12/28 1987 - 03/02, 03/27, 04/19, 08/20, 09/18 1986 - 04/03, 12/27 1985 - 06/15, 06/25, 11/05, 11/10 1982 - 04/03, 08/07, 08/10, 10/9,10 1981 - 03/09,10, 07/04, 08/28, 08/30 1980 - 05/10, 1980 Warfield/Radio City acoustic stuff, 11/30, 12/13,14 1979 - 05/3-13, 10/27,28, 11/30, 12/01, 12/26 1975 - all four shows 1974-1973-1972 - any and all, just pick a show and go! 1971 - 08/26, 12/01 1970 - 02/11,13,14, 04/15, 05/02 1969 - 02/15, 02/28, 11/02, 11/08, 12/12/69
Great news today as my wife is getting out from her month-long stay in hospital. Granted, we’re headed from here to a rehabilitation hospital for a bit, but considering what we’ve gone through the past month, I’ll take it. Thanks again for all of the good vibes sent our way. Won’t be long now until we’re all home again. I may have to play 3/14/71 on my way to the hospital today.
The Grateful Dead have more archives than Abraham Lincoln, and they're on track to have more historians and biographers. This is probably insane. The Lincoln thing is crazy enough. But no-o, we're doing it with this ramshackle choogly~type band from the California fog belt. Right here, right now, in fact. Ain't that America? I would never have guessed that I'd be buried under an avalanche of material like this back when I was a a newbie in the 1970s. My advice: take five of the top recommendations for live sets, spreading out the lineups and looking for a maximum variety of songs, and spend six months getting acquainted with them. There's a temptation to hurry when there's so many releases to sift through, but I don't think the mode of just listening once and then rushing on to another gig is the best way to learn about the music as a newcomer. Repeated listening helps draw out the details and subtleties.
Lots of other good recs here, btbderkek, and you may notice that certain ones keep cropping up. That's probably a sign to pay attention to those I had to edit my listings to keep from overwhelming you, but I would say that I agree with the DP 4, 8, and 16 (plus add 35 if you like the skull and roses era), the Pow Wow 69 from May that inuaditis mentioned, Reckoning is a good choice for acoustic greats, and look for Austin 11-15-71 when that gets re-released as a Road Trips. Consider also a policy of never lending out your Dead discs, especially those out of print. Offer to copy FOR people from your house, not to let them have a go at it. You can see from the comments here how these discs get "easily forgotten" once they have slipped away.
Ending of 5/14/78 also wonderous - the long NFA>GDTRFB has the whole band in that uber simpatico mode.
This was kind of my plan, I really like to get in repeated listening to really get to catch all the details and discovering bits you may have not caught the first few playthroughs. I have probably listened to Europe 72 and Skull and Roses about 15 times through each within the past week. Fortunately I'm blessed with my working situation, my work area is pretty much to myself and I have a nice set of speakers to listen to whatever I'd like, so I will be able to get in a lot of listening time here as well.
Thank you all very much for the amount of responses and advice I've received here already! I apologize for not getting to reply to each and everyone of you personally, promise I've been reading everyone's responses, they are very much appreciated! Going to complile a list of everyones suggestions and start digging in here, will report back as I get through them!
Glad to hear that, might start there first since I've been enjoying the original so much. Kind of leaning towards picking up all of the shows in that Europe 72 box set, my friend has them all digitally downloaded anyway.
Oh it’s better cuz it’s got the great Dark Star>Drums>TOO from 5/7/72. The only mistake the Dead release people made with E72 Volume 2 was NOT getting one of the long Cautions on the release. I know they wanted versions of all the short songs that were left off the original E72 but removing 3-4 of the less important songs like Beat it on Down the Line, Next Time You See Me & Chinatown Shuffle would have bothered maybe less than a few people. For me I would eliminate Black Throated Wind as well as I can’t imagine what anyone hears in that song.
And the best Caution from the tour was on the Steppin' Out release, so I think that might be why as well.
LOL, I ordered 'The Grateful Dead and Philosophy" from that pop culture philosophy series, and my wife saw it and said 'What could that book possibly be about?'
Not sure about that. None of them have the raw power of the great primal versions but the long 23 minute version from 4/17 is pretty amazing. If I had to choose 1 show from the tour as my favorite, this might be it.
Robert Bryant's 4/13/84 Hampton FOB right now. Listening to this Scarlet/Fire for the first time with the Healy induced vocal delay towards the end of FOTM. I don't always think this - but, very cool. Great tape, too.
While I don't think of BTW as an essential Dead song, I do have soft spot in my heart for it. Always thought it was a good first set song to get the band moving in the right direction...
I see that one mentioned a lot actually. You're right, and that is one of their most accessible periods, a lot of well-done standards and nothing too way out there.
Also, (after having read way too many pages in this thread) I think it's hilarious that the _only_ thing that's truly agreed on is recommending "Ladies and Gentleman..." as required listening for anyone who's new. I completely get it but it still amuses me. It's basically a mad dash to see who can post that recommendation first
It's also readily available and inexpensive, that doesn't hurt. Between that and the GD Movie Soundtrack, you can get a lot of Dead for cheap.
Haha this is what I love about this thread. Crap on ANY Dead song and 15 people show up to tell you why you're wrong (in a good-natured way of course!) So now I have to add my take-- Good sir, I beg to disagree. While overplayed (esp in 1972), I do enjoy this song from time to time. Hell I'll take it over most of Bobby's cowboy songs any day. I think it's got some charm and I do enjoy the vocal vamp towards the end of the song, even if Bobby gets a bit goofy with it sometimes. I think I remember you being a fan of JRAD? If so, do check out the version they did of BTW at Lockn Fest this year with Bobby Weir himself sitting in. They really lit a fire under his ass and the performance is quite powerful. Especially the last 2 minutes or so. I know because I was riding the rail for the whole thing
Now I’m going to listen to a couple versions of this song as maybe it’s like Row Jimmy. I used to hate it and one day I loved it - happened late last year and alas, JRAD played it on 1/13/2018 to start set 2 - and I loved it by them as well
No love for “Two from the Vault”? I think the rerelease with the Alligator>Caution would garner some accolades.
